A short Fifty Shades of Grey Deconstruction Fic by Das Mervin. It revolves around a What If? scenario wherein Anastasia Steele is approached by one of Christian Grey's ex submissives, who has quite a bit to say about him. It was largely inspired by a Noodle Incident from the first book, involving one of Christian's subs being injured when he suspended her from the ceiling of his playroom. It can be read on LiveJournal here
or here.
Contains examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: As referenced in the title, Sharon was Christian's thirteenth sub and the one who came out of it rather seriously injured. On the other hand, she ended the relationship right away and so avoided any further physical and emotional harm, and manages to save Ana from a similar fate.
- Adaptational Villainy: Christian Grey is presented here as an abusive, self-absorbed Jerkass who manipulates his subs into doing whatever he wants, or straight-up uses threats and violence to intimidate them into obeying him. He's an extremely irresponsible and ill-informed Dom to boot, managing to seriously injure Sharon during a BDSM session. In this case, this really isn't that different from how he comes across in the original books, the difference being that this fic presents his actions as predatory and harmful rather than playing it for fanservice.
- Alternate Universe Fic: Ana canonically never met any of Christian's former subs (save for Leila) and was certainly never persuaded early on to leave Christian, meaning that many of the later events of Fifty Shades of Grey and the other books didn't happen. However, it is canon that Christian had a sub who got injured during a BDSM scene...
- An Aesop: Being shy, Weak-Willed or a doormat doesn't necessarily make a person a 'natural' submissive when it comes to BDSM (Sharon is submissive sexually, but her manner everywhere else is confident and assertive, with Ana outright comparing her to her more outgoing friend Kate) and it's problematic to suggest that it does. At the same time, being controlling, emotionally manipulative and pushy without considering others' feelings doesn't necessarily make you a Dom (but it definitely makes you an asshole).
- An Arm and a Leg: Heavily downplayed, as Sharon didn't actually end up losing any limbs, but she reveals that when Christian suspended her from the ceiling of his playroom he tied her up in such a way her arm was dislocated and tore a ligament, which required surgery to repair the damage. She said it sure felt like she'd nearly had her arm torn off, though.
- Ass Shove: Played for Drama. Sharon made it clear to Christian that anything involving anal sex was off-limits because she simply doesn't like it, which he tried to argue with her about. She says that when he had her gagged and tied up, he threatened to do it anyway, but luckily it never went further than verbal threats. Ana, who has had similar arguments with Christian, is horrified when she hears this.
- Big Brother Instinct: Sharon mentions her 6'7", rugby-playing brother Greg helped her confront Christian when she ended things and also offered to "kick [his] ass" after he dislocated her arm.
- Blaming the Victim: Sharon says that when Christian confronted her about ending their relationship early because of the injury he gave her, he tried to shift the blame entirely on her, saying he couldn't tell she was in pain, that she should've sent clearer signals to stop and that she over-estimated her limits when she agreed to become his sub. Sharon calls this out as victim-blaming, saying Christian is just a terrible, abusive Dom.
- Bound and Gagged: Sharon says that she agreed to let Christian gag her and tie her up during a BDSM session, though it soon stopped being harmless fun...
- Broken Pedestal: Christian definitely becomes this to Ana by the end of the fic; she starts out admiring him for his perceived worldliness and finds him incredibly attractive. She is initially shocked and bristles at Sharon's blunt criticisms and derogative opinion of Christian, but as she hears more about Sharon's experience with Christian and starts to re-evaluate her own interactions with him, Ana comes to realize he's actually extremely manipulative and toxic, and feels hurt and humiliated by how easily he sucked her in. She's also extremely disturbed by his lack of respect for boundaries (both hers and other people's).
- Casual Kink: Sharon is very upfront about her sexual kinks and interests to Ana, to the point where Christian comparatively looks rather 'tame'; Sharon outright calls Christian "pretty much a white chocolate S&M player" and Ana is astounded by some of the stuff she's done in the bedroom. However, Sharon comes across a pretty normal and friendly woman (which is generally how actual BDSM practitioners are).
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed; when Ana figures out that Sharon is one of Christian's ex subs, she's immediately jealous of her, but doesn't do or say anything too irrational. And she stops feeling jealous once she hears what Sharon has to say about her lover...
- Comfort Food: Sharon orders her and Ana a chocolate haupia when she gets upset about the Awful Truths she's just been told; Sharon actually says that "chocolate is the best comfort food".
- Cool Big Sis: Sharon comes across as a bit of one to Ana, especially in the ending where she happily agrees to come with her and Kate as a support person when she breaks things off with Christian.
- Curtains Match the Window: Sharon is a brown-eyed brunette. Like many of Christian's other subs, as she later notes.
- Damsel out of Distress: Sharon. After Christian dislocated her arm and sent her to bed, she waited until he was asleep, then snuck out of his apartment and drove herself to ER.
- Deconstruction Fic: The fic takes all of the more disturbing implications and Fridge Horror present in the Fifty Shades books and plays them realistically. The results are not pretty. It actually doubles as a Fix Fic too, though, as the ending has Sharon helping Ana realise she doesn't have to put up with this and deciding to dump Christian, becoming more informed about how BDSM actually works, gaining a new friend in Sharon and growing as a person.
- Dehumanization: This briefly comes up when Sharon asks Ana if she's aware of Christian's previous relationships, to which Ana says that she "know[s] about the fifteen". This gives Sharon a moment of pause, before she tells Ana:Sharon: Hon, they are all women and they all have names and are people. [...] I'm one of them.
- Domestic Abuse: Sharon states her opinion that what Christian does is this rather than BDSM, especially considering how he treated her and how he treats Ana in the present, including pressuring them about their hard limits, caring more about his own pleasure than his subs' well-being, threatening to ignore or outright ignoring expressed hard limits if he doesn't get his way, complete lack of after-care and then trying to blame it all on his subs for not communicating properly or being unable to handle how 'extreme' he is if they confront him.
- Extreme Doormat: Ana admits she has a tendency to let people walk all over her, especially Christian. Sharon makes a point of stating this is not the same thing as being sexually submissive and that it’s troubling that Christian suggested to her they were the same thing.
- Fetishized Abuser: Thoroughly deconstructed. Christian's behaviour is clearly presented here as being disturbing, harmful and predatory rather than sexy or romantic, with Sharon stating that people like him use BDSM as an excuse to abuse and manipulate partners (especially when it comes to people like Ana who don't know much about the subculture and/or are sexually inexperienced).
- Foil: Sharon to Ana. They have both been involved in BDSM relationships with Christian Grey and look superficially alike. However, while Ana was a virgin before meeting Christian and knows virtually nothing about BDSM, Sharon has been involved in the scene for a few years and is quite experienced. While Ana is rather shy and unconfident, Sharon is assertive and very comfortable in her own skin. Ana finds almost everything to do with sex and BDSM scandalising and embarrassing, while Sharon is a lot more casual and even blunt about it. Ana is also unsure about being a "natural" submissive (which is what Christian calls her), while Sharon knows she's submissive and is completely fine with it as long as it's on her terms.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Sharon and Christian's relationship is a rather horrifying example of BDSM gone badly wrong, exemplifying what can happen if you get one person who doesn't adhere to the Safe, Sane, and Consensual rules and cares only for their own desires.
- Has a Type: Christian's subs are all at least superficially similar to one another. Ana notes that she and Sharon are both short, thin, white brunette women in their twenties, and Sharon states outright that Ana "look[s] like [her]". Sharon mentions that in hindsight, she realised all Christian's subs look alike, which she personally finds a bit creepy and alarming. Ana mostly feels upset, because it means she's not special to Christian, merely one of many.
- Horrible Judge of Character:
- Zig-zagged in regards to Sharon. She admits that in hindsight, there were a lot of red flags around Christian, but she ignored them because she found him attractive and hadn't had good sex in a while with someone who shared her proclivities.
- Played painfully straight with Ana, who realizes she's badly misjudged Christian and blindly went along with everything he says and does, although Sharon makes a point of stating she thinks she's just naive, not stupid.
- The Ingenue: Ana is portrayed as a bit of one, as she is in the original books. However, it's deconstructed and Played for Drama in this fic; Ana is so naive about sex and BDSM, she is easily manipulated by Christian and misjudges or misinterprets a lot of his more harmful behaviour. Sharon helps open her eyes and she is not happy when she realises what's actually going on.
- Jerkass: Christian comes off as a huge one in this fic, with a sprinkling of Rich Jerk too. He's generally rude and condescending, and looks down on both Ana and Sharon's old cars and tries to pressure them into selling them. His obsession with wealth and status even extends to him claiming an expensive restaurant he took Ana to is called Cuisine Sauvage, only for Sharon to state it's actually just called The Savage Kitchen, mocking Christian's pretentiousness. And that's not even getting into his predatory and abusive behavior.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After the stuff Christian pulled with Sharon she cut him off and threatened to sic her brother on him if he came near her. She gave him a taste of his own medicine as well by recording their break-up conversation as insurance if he tried to harass her and later manages to persuade Ana he's bad news.
- Manipulative Bastard: Christian comes across as one here, especially in regards to the very naive and inexperienced Ana. He takes advantage of her inexperience with relationships, her Insecure Love Interest tendencies and lack of knowledge on BDSM to try and get her to go along with whatever he wants. He emphasizes how "special" she is and her supposed "natural submissive" traits to make her more compliant and willing to ignore any qualms she has. Sharon also points out that the contract he's trying to make Ana sign isn't actually a Dom/Sub contract but a Master/Slave contract; the latter is far more restrictive and has more rules in place compared to the former. Sharon pointed this out to Christian when they were going over their own contracts, and he acted surprised and agreed to amend it, as if it were just an oversight. However, upon learning he did the same thing with the much less-informed Ana, Sharon suspects he's doing it deliberately to get more control over his subs.
- Minimalist Cast: Due in part to the fic's short length and the focus of the story, only five characters appear on-page: Sharon, Ana, Kate briefly at the start, and OCs Warren and Yvonne, staff at Tommy O's who serve Ana and Sharon and don't get much characterization beyond that. Despite being a major focus of the fic, Christian Grey never actually appears in person.
- The Missus and the Ex: Christian's ex-submissive Sharon intentionally seeks out Ana, the woman he's currently trying to seduce, to warn her about what Christian can be like. Sharon says she knows this is a weird situation, but she feels she has to tell Ana about how Christian treated her before she gets hurt. Ana is initially a bit wary and jealous, but agrees to hear Sharon out. They end up becoming quite friendly with each other and Sharon agrees to help Ana break up with Christian.
- Mundane Luxury: After being around Christian for several days, Ana is pleasantly surprised and happy when Sharon takes her to an inexpensive restaurant with good food, tells her to order whatever she wants and doesn’t pressure her to eat or drink any more or less than she wants to.
- Nice Girl: Sharon comes across as very friendly and compassionate, seeking out Ana, a complete stranger, to warn her about Christian and make sure she's safe purely out of concern for her, and does everything she can to make Ana feel safe and comfortable.
- Not Like Other Girls: Ana brings up that Christian told her that she was so different from all the other women he'd been with and that he was "breaking all of [his] rules" to be with her, making her feel special. However, when Sharon reveals he'd used similar manipulative tactics with her (which she was less susceptible to mostly because she's more experienced and self-confident) and points out that all of Christian's subs are very similar in looks and sexual proclivities, Ana feels it was all a lie and that Christian is only pursuing her because she fits his "type".
- O.C. Stand-in: Sharon Leibowitz. She's an actual character in the books, but is only vaguely alluded to and doesn't have a name. Here she's a main character and given a surprising amount of characterisation and backstory, considering the fic is only 10,201 words long.
- Property of Love: Sharon finds being a 'slave' a big turn-on, which Ana is gobsmacked by. Sharon makes a point of explaining that a 'slave/master' relationship in the BDSM community isn't the same thing as actual 'treating people as property' slavery, especially given that these 'slaves' consent to the relationship and there are all sorts of rules and guidelines involved.
- Questionable Consent:
- Some of Ana and Christian's sex scenes come across as this in hindsight, especially the incident where he broke into her house to tie her up, spank her and roughly have sex with her after she jokingly told him she wasn't sure she wanted to continue their relationship. She's pretty disturbed when she realises this.
- Sharon and Christian's sexual encounter was this at best, at worst rape. When Christian tied Sharon up, her arm was dislocated and she started signalling to him to stop (she couldn't use verbal safe words because she was gagged). Christian either didn't notice or ignored the signals to stop and carried on with the scene, with Sharon helpless and in pain the whole time. Sharon states that even if he didn't intentionally overlook her trying to stop the scene, his lack of concern for her safety comes off as extremely neglectful and that a good Dom would've picked up on something being wrong.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: The main subject of the fic is expanding upon an incident vaguely alluded to in the first book where one of Christian's ex-subs got injured during a scene.
- Revenge Fic: In regards to Christian Grey, though done in a more subdued and realistic manner; he in fact never actually shows up in person and the 'revenge' is more about getting Ana away from his harmful influence, although via Sharon, Christian's controlling, manipulative and sometimes abusive behavior gets thoroughly called-out. By the end Ana is completely disenchanted with Christian, wondering what she ever saw in him, and decides she's going to break up with him, with Sharon saying that combined they have enough evidence of his abusive and illegal behavior to make life unpleasant for him if he won't leave Ana alone.
- Safe Word: Sharon brings up the importance of these, only to mention that during her first session with Christian, he decided to gag her. They'd worked out some hand signals to use in place of spoken words in this scenario, but it doesn't end too well...
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Sharon mocks the idea that Christian thinks he can do whatever he wants because of his wealth:Sharon: Don't let him back you into a corner because he's got money. God knows he loves trying to convince you how powerful and wonderful he is just because he's got a massive bank account. It doesn't work that way—you've got plenty of evidence against him.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sharon signed the contract with Christian agreeing to be his submissive (or "slave", as she more accurately puts it) for three months, but after the incident where her arm was dislocated, which actually occurred on their first night together, she ended up fleeing his apartment as he slept and cutting contact with him.
- Series Continuity Error: Ana at one point describes herself as having brown eyes like Sharon...but in the actual books she's repeatedly said to have blue eyes (although it is noted in both the original books and the fic that Ana's overall physical features are similar to all Christian's subs).
- Shown Their Work: Das Mervin did a fair bit of research for the fic, partly to critique the poor research in Fifty Shades (especially where BDSM is concerned):
- Tommy O's, the restaurant Sharon takes Ana to, is an actual restaurant serving Hawaiian food in Vancouver, Washington.
- The author displays quite a bit of knowledge on BDSM so that Sharon can talk about it accurately to Ana; in particular she makes a distinction between the terms "slave" and "submissive" (and the accompanying "Master" and "Dom") in the BDSM community and calls out Christian for being a bad Dom who doesn't respect his Subs' hard limits, poorly-implements safe words and other safety measures, ignores his Subs' well-being to focus on his own pleasure, and doesn't do any after-care.
- Stalker without a Crush: Sharon is a downplayed, benevolent example. She admits she technically followed Ana to her home address after seeing her coming out of Christian's office looking upset, and then later seeing the two of them having dinner at a restaurant, both of which were coincidental. Sharon apologizes for being creepy, but says she's doing it out of genuine concern for Ana, she having deduced Christian was likely trying to make her his next sub.
- The Unreveal: The fic doesn't explain why Christian goes for a particular type of woman; although Sharon picked up on this and finds it unsettling because of how similar they all are, she couldn't possibly know the canonical reason for this. In Fifty Shades Darker, it's revealed that Christian believes he's attracted to these women because they resemble his neglectful birth mother (whom he hates); given that the fic assumes the reader has also read or is at least familiar with the source material and thus this particular plot point, it is likely intended to be an inversion.
- Wham Line: Sharon's description of what happened to her with Christian; it's at this point that Ana realises she's the sub whom Christian offhandedly mentioned got injured and displays just how serious the incident actually was:Sharon: I won't give you the gory details and all of that, but, to put it simply, I got tied up, and then he started hoisting and tightening the ropes. And by hoisting and tightening, I mean he damn near ripped my arm out of its socket.
- Worse with Context: Played for Drama. Sharon gives a hypothetical context to Ana when they're talking about the submissive contract. When Sharon brings up that potential Doms and Masters complaining about a person's hard limits is a red flag, Ana questions why (Christian having done the same thing with her).Sharon: Because if he starts arguing with you and demanding something you don't want over, say, dinner, you can keep saying no. You can get up and walk away [...]
You can't do that when you're gagged and bound to a table.- Sharon further goes on to explain how, during her first and last BDSM scene with Christian, he was careless with hoisting and tightening, purposefully ignored a gagged Sharon's alert signals and threatened her with anal rape.
